Positioned as “a great first time buyer opportunity OR second home for [a] Pied-a-Terre purchaser,” the classic one-bedroom Marina District condo #1 at 1500 Francisco Street, which is NOT located within a liquefaction zone, was purchased for $850,000 in August of 2020, which was actually $25,000 “under asking” at the time.
Featuring period details, along with a previously updated bathroom, kitchen and lighting, the 760-square-foot condo, which is a block from Fort Mason, a block from Moscone Park and two blocks from Safeway, returned to the market priced at $899,000 two months ago, a sale at which would have represented net appreciation of just 5.8 percent for the condo over the past three years.
Reduced to $889,000 in March, to $869,000 two weeks ago, and now advertising “Offers [to be] Reviewed May 1,” the list price for 1500 Francisco Street #1 has just been dropped to $799,000, an “at asking” sale at which would represent a net 6.0 percent drop in value for the unit since the third quarter of 2020 on an apples-to-apples basis, despite recent reports of a market “surge” and the pandemic-era squeeze.
If you think you know the market for classic Marina condos and locations, now’s the time to tell.
First floor unit I suspect, and no parking. In a conservative neighborhood like the Marina, There’s a tough hurdle to clear.
OTOH, only $1,051 per ft.² (plus the reasonable $907 monthly HOA fee) to own a place to live in the Marina. If you for some reason really want to be in a neighborhood like this one, could be a bargain unless values are still on a secular decline.
I get the first floor; I get the no parking. Double whammy. I do not get the “conservative” part and how that relates to value.
The Marina isn’t exactly chocked full of “Green” types who will use public transportation and consider alternatives to cars. Also, anyone who considers purchasing this as a weekend pied-a-terre isn’t going to drive into The City for the weekend and spend time hunting for a street parking spot.
A 760-square-foot one-bedroom is hardly a pied-a-terre for most people. This is a very nice unit in a great location. It would be a good value if not for the $900/month HOA dues…
I can’t figure out if the first sentence’s use of the adverb hardly is trying to convey that 760 ft.² is too small for a pied-à-terre or if it’s saying that’s too large for a pied-à-terre and constitutes a proper home, albeit apartment-sized, for someone in the upper-middle class (to be able to afford this “great first time buyer opportunity”, the buyer would need to have a household income north of $225,000 yearly).
Soft story?
Looks like it was a soft story when built. The property description makes no note of a seismic retrofit, a feature the seller would want to advertise. As a consolation the HOA dues include earthquake insurance.
And not just a soft-story, but a soft story in two directions….meaning you’ll be subjected to lateral displacment in almost any direction the shock waves come from. It’s possible, I guess ,they’ve inserted some moment frames behind those garage doors, but no way to know just looking at a street view.
Building Permit from 1990
Application Number: 9007156
Description: STRUCTURAL IMPROVEMENTS TO DAMAGED AREAS FR 10-17-89 EQUAKE
Cost: $30,000.00
“Structural Improvements” could mean a lot of things and $30,000.00 isn’t that much even in 1990 dollars.
Yeah, that wouldn’t pay for a steel moment frame retrofit. But it would be enough in 1990 for wooden shear wall reinforcement and bolting the sill plate to the foundation
That particular section of the Marina isn’t a liquefaction zone
But the ground will still shake. Soft stories on bedrock won’t help you.
I wonder if being that close to Bay St. is the issue with high turnover buildings in the Marina.
Not really. It’s mostly due to the fact that the neighborhood skews younger, and as people age, get into relationships, start a family, they tend to move. Job relocation plays a fairly large part as well.
The building does not appear in the San Francisco Soft Story building database map.
Seller borrowed 595k in October 2020, when one could get a 30 year fixed rate mortgage for 2.8%. $595k @ 2.8% = $2,444 per month payment.
How much debt could be supported by a monthly payment of $2,444 at today’s rates of @ 6.88%? $375K of principal, in round numbers.
$595k – $375k = $220k of interest rate / rho price sensitivity, assuming a new buyer has the same down payment and monthly payment willingness.
I’m going out on a limb here, but maybe, just maybe, the falling price on this nice unit in a world-class neighborhood isn’t due to staging, layout, proximity to traffic, soft story construction, floor or parking issues, fear of the Big One, numerology, astrology, or even the well-known unanimous neighborhood support for Donald Trump(/s), because none of those “defects” seemed to matter in 2020 when it sold for $850,000, and instead the decline in price is due to a relevant factor that actually is different from 2020 (and the last two-plus decades): the reversal of historically-accommodative monetary policy crafted to blow a succession of massive speculative asset bubbles.
“Unanimous”? Keep telling us that you know absolutely nothing. I’ve lived in the Marina since ’96 and while it trends conservative, the notion that Trump has “unanimous” support here is laughably ignorant.
Yep: it never pays to make absolute statements!
(Well, almost never)
🙂
Please note the “/s” tag immediately following that statement. I rarely use the sarc tag, because I figure my bitter sarcasm should be apparent to fans of reading comprehension, but I used it here because I had a hunch one of the local nitpicking selective readers was ripe to have a cow. Thanks for proving my point and overreacting, even in the presence of the sarc tag!
Pointing out things you don’t know/understand isn’t “overreacting” – it’s as simple as breathing.
The first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging. As you seem unfamiliar with internet conventions, I suggest you seek out a dictionary and look up the word, “sarcasm.”
If I may play peacemaker here: the “/s” convention isn’t universally accepted: in some locales it must be a standing “/s” – that is to say “(/s)” means something else entirely (and you dare not ask what [/s] means!) So perhaps sophisticated (attempts at) communication should await an upgrade in SS’ font capabilities.
Fondly, N {/s
🙂
@two beers: It is “Internet”, capitalized, not “internet”, which is a short for internetwork.(ducks)
Clean well-kept neighborhoods with successful hard working citizens are threatening to (most of) the non-pragmatic types whose philosophy of equality is bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator instead of up.
Right, as opposed to the hard-working but unsuccessful neighborhoods …
I imagine it’s pretty threatening to not have a stable home?
“World-class neighborhood?” Your hyperbole is amusing. It’s a safe location and it is nice to be by the park and about 6 blocks from the beginning of the retail & restaurants stretch of Chestnut, but the specific block is fairly dull and nondescript. And, even if one only wants a “pied-a-terre” (oh, la, la!) or perhaps especially if one wants one, there are much newer and nicer nearby units available, albeit for a higher price.
Nice little older unit, but nothing “world-class” about it by any stretch of the imagination.
That said, interest rates are quite high and jobs are down in the city, so yes, home prices, except for the most premium residences, will not surprisingly decline. It’s happened many times before.